Javier Hernandez celebrated the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act for the same reason many others did, but he also hopes that victory clears the way for another progressive issue that's personal for him.

Hernandez, a 24-year-old Chaffey College student from Pomona, is gay, and he's been campaigning for an end to restrictions on same-sex marriage since Proposition 8 -- defining marriage as between a man and a woman, approved by state voters in 2008 and effectively invalided by the court last week -- was first proposed.

But he also has a long political and personal connection to the immigration reform like the bill the Senate passed last week. One controversy impeding that bill had been whether to extend immigration benefits to same-sex couples, many Democrats saying the two cultural land mines should be debated separately.

Now, the Supreme Court has debated and decided it for them. Hours after the ruling found the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, the federal government announced it would start extending immigration benefits to gay married couples.

"Now we don't have to pass it (benefits for same-sex couples) through immigration reform," Hernandez said. "We can concentrate on the next battle, which is the House. We don't know what they're going to do."

Potentially, Hernandez could benefit directly from the extension of immigration benefits immediately. He's in the country illegally, and his partner is not.

One thing at a time, Hernandez said.

"I do have a partner who is a citizen, but we haven't really talked about it," he said. "We aren't at that point at the moment, but we're happy to have that opportunity to consider it."

About 32,000 same-sex couples in the United States have one partner who is an American citizen and another from a foreign country, said Gary Gates, a demographer at the UCLA School of Law's Williams Institute. It isn't clear how many of those couples are married or how many might seek immigration benefits.

"Numerically, it is a very, very modest impact," Gates said. "But I think it's very important in the sense many of these stories are in fact couples who have been perhaps together for a while and have kids together and they lived for some time fearing they would have to separate."

Heterosexual Americans have long been able to sponsor husbands or wives for green cards to live in the United States. Same-sex couples were unable to obtain these immigration benefits, or a number of other federal benefits, because the 1996 law prohibited the U.S. government from recognizing their marriages -- until this past week's ruling.

In recent years, binational gay and lesbian couples have stepped up their fight for immigration benefits and achieved some limited success as legal challenges to the law wound through the courts.

In some cases, immigration judges held off deporting a foreign spouse. In others, couples tried to get green cards, were denied and appealed the decision, hoping the Supreme Court decision would favor them.

To Hernandez, it seems like the winds might be shifting.

"It was a historic day in general for people who believe in equality," he said of the court's same-sex marriage decisions. "It's important because we're finally seeing some progress. We'll see what's next."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

___

(c)2013 San Bernardino County Sun (San Bernardino, Calif.)

Visit the San Bernardino County Sun (San Bernardino, Calif.) at www.sbsun.com